Daphne du Maurier

Daphne du Maurier

Birth : 1907-05-14, London, England, UK

Death : 1989-04-19

History

Dame Daphne du Maurier, Lady Browning, DBE (13 May 1907 – 19 April 1989) was an English author and playwright. Although she is classed as a romantic novelist, her stories have been described as "moody and resonant" with overtones of the paranormal. Her bestselling works were not at first taken seriously by critics, but have since earned an enduring reputation for narrative craft. Many have been successfully adapted into films, including the novels Rebecca, My Cousin Rachel, and Jamaica Inn, and the short stories The Birds and Don't Look Now/Not After Midnight.

Profile

Daphne du Maurier

Movies

Rebecca
Novel
After a whirlwind romance with a wealthy widower, a naïve bride moves to his family estate but can't escape the haunting shadow of his late wife.
The Tango of the Widower and Its Distorting Mirror
Novel
A man whose wife has committed suicide, appears to him as a ghost. The ghost follows him everywhere, under the bed, under tables… After seeing the ghost so frequently, the man begins to resemble her.
My Cousin Rachel
Novel
A young Englishman plots revenge against his mysterious, beautiful cousin, believing that she murdered his guardian. But his feelings become complicated as he finds himself falling under the beguiling spell of her charms.
Daphne du Maurier: In Rebecca's Footsteps
Self (archive footage)
A portrait of the masterful author whose novels were adapted into the classics 'The Birds,' 'Jamaica Inn,' and 'Rebecca."
The Scapegoat
Story
Set in 1952, as England prepares for the coronation, The Scapegoat tells the story of two very different men who have one thing in common - a face.
Rebecca, az első feleség
Novel
A naive young woman moves into the mansion that belongs to her new husband, a rich widower. She soon realizes the memory of his deceased first wife maintains a grip on her husband, as well as the staff of servants.
Rebecca
Writer
The plot adheres closely to the original novel, revolves around wealthy Maxim DeWinter, his naïve new wife, and Mrs. Danvers, the manipulative housekeeper of DeWinter's Cornish estate Manderley. Mrs. Danvers resents the new wife's intrusion and persuades the new wife that she is an unworthy replacement for the first Mrs. DeWinter, the glamorous and mysterious Rebecca, who perished in a drowning accident. The new Mrs. DeWinter struggles to find her identity and take control of her life among the shadows left by Rebecca.
Frenchman's Creek
Writer
Seeking to escape the stifling London court society, the beautiful headstrong Lady Dona St. Columb flees to her family estate on the Cornish coast. Her new freedom swiftly brings her into contact with the dashingly handsome French privateer Jean Aubrey who sweeps her off her feet and into a world of adventure on the high seas very different from her dull and boring life at court with her husband Sir Harry. Together with Jean Aubrey and her enigmatic servant William, Lady Dona conceives a daring plan to steal a ship right from under the noses of the English authorities. The theft enrages the authorities who make every effort to trap the French Pirate. However, as the noose begins to tighten around the lovers, Lady Dona is faced with the dilemma of duty and children with Sir Harry or freedom and excitement with Jean Aubrey
The Lifeforce Experiment
Story
A CIA agent infiltrates the research team of a scientist who seeks to capture the essence of a dying leukemia patient.
The Birds II: Land's End
Short Story
Still haunted by the memory of the son they lost to an accident years ago, Ted and Mary Hocken take up residence with their two young daughters on the remote, windswept reaches of a tiny East Coast island. The Hockens are determined to forget their painful past and spend a quiet, uneventful summer. But as immense flocks of birds begin massing around the island, it becomes clear that something is very wrong in this isolated, deceptively calm oasis. Before long, the sky is darkened by a hideous onslaught of the screeching, winged creatures. It's an assault unlike anything in the history of man or beast – or is it? For one old timer recalls a similar, horrific outbreak that gripped the West Coast decades ago...
Utharam
Original Story
Saleena is happily married to Mathew , a wealthy estate owner. Inexplicably she commits suicide much to the shock of Mathew. He firmly believes that there existed no reason for her to do the act and asks his journalist friend Balu to investigate why. Balu, who was also close to Saleena, tries to piece together clue from her past to figure out the answer.
Morning Patrol
Writer
A deserted city is the setting, where a woman walks alone trying to approach and enter the forbidden zone. Traps and the morning patrol lurk everywhere. Electronic voices summon the (non-existent) people to abandon the city. Can a love affair in this place survive?
Jamaica Inn
Novel
The respected squire of a quiet Cornish village is in reality the leader of a gang of murderous pirates who attack passing ships, kill their crews and steal their cargoes.
The Breakthrough
Writer
An adaptation of Daphne du Maurier's 1966 short story of the same title, broadcast as part of the BBC's "BBC2 Playhouse".
Rex Harrison Presents Stories of Love
Story
Pilot for a proposed television anthology series with stories about love, either dramatic or comedic. In this pilot, there were three different segments: in the first, a computer falls in love with its programmer; in the second, a World War II vet falls in love with a murderer; in the third, a woman falls in love with a penniless painter.
Don't Look Now
Story
Laura and John, grieved by a terrible loss, meet in Venice, where John is in charge of the restoration of a church, two mysterious sisters, one of whom gives them a message sent from the afterlife.
The Birds
Author
Chic socialite Melanie Daniels enjoys a passing flirtation with an eligible attorney in a San Francisco pet shop and, on an impulse, follows him to his hometown bearing a gift of lovebirds. But upon her arrival, the bird population runs amok. Suddenly, the townsfolk face a massive avian onslaught, with the feathered fiends inexplicably attacking people all over Bodega Bay.
The Scapegoat
Novel
An Englishman in France unwittingly is placed into the identity, and steps into the vacated life, of a look-alike French nobleman.
My Cousin Rachel
Novel
A young man plots revenge against the woman he believes murdered his cousin, but his plans are shaken when he comes face to face with the enigmatic beauty.
Hungry Hill
Novel
Life becomes a tragedy for the wife of an Irish heir to a 19th-century family feud and fortune.
The Years Between
Theatre Play
Michael Redgrave, Valerie Hobson, Flora Robson and Felix Aylmer star in this moving and sophisticated story of love and loss set against the backdrop of the Second World War and based on the play by Daphne du Maurier. After hearing news that her officer husband has been killed in battle, Diana Wentworth forges a new life for herself, becoming an MP and learning to love again. Then, out of the blue comes the shattering news that her husband is not dead after all.
Frenchman's Creek
Novel
An English lady falls in love with a French pirate after he kidnaps her from her ancestral home on the coast of Cornwall and sweeps her off her feet into a world of adventure.
Rebecca
Novel
Story of a young woman who marries a fascinating widower only to find out that she must live in the shadow of his former wife, Rebecca, who died mysteriously several years earlier. The young wife must come to grips with the terrible secret of her handsome, cold husband, Max De Winter. She must also deal with the jealous, obsessed Mrs. Danvers, the housekeeper, who will not accept her as the mistress of the house.
Jamaica Inn
Novel
In coastal Cornwall, England, during the early 19th Century, a young woman who's come there to visit her aunt, discovers that she's married an inkeeper who's a member of a gang of criminals who arrange shipwrecking and murder for profit.